The Numbers: What is the breakdown of revenues among federal, state, and local governments?

Federal, state, and local revenues totaled nearly $4 trillion in 2009. Federal revenue made up over 60 percent of the total, states collected about 22 percent, and local governments brought in about 17 percent. Transfers from the federal government to state and local governments and from state governments to local governments shifted the balance of resources among the three groups.

The federal government transferred over one-fifth of its revenue (nearly one-seventh of total government revenue) to state and local governments, leaving it with 48 percent of total revenue, about $2 trillion.

Almost all of the federal transfer went to the states, which in turn passed the equivalent of about 100 percent of this revenue to local governments.

States collected 22 percent of total revenue from their own sources, about $900 billion.

Local governments received transfers from both the federal and state governments equal to about one-seventh of total revenue; from their own sources, they collected about $700 billion, or 17 percent of all government revenue.